DAIL REPORT: The Taoiseach denied that the Government's decentralisation plans were for political motives.
"The Civil Service has never been politicised, and I do not think it ever will be," said Mr Ahern. "It stands on its own standards and rules." He was replying to the Fine Gael leader, Mr Enda Kenny, who had remarked that a "hanging job" was in prospect for the Government if the programme was not delivered before the next general election. "This appears to be the first public occasion where this administration has blatantly attempted to politicise the civil service." Insisting that there was no question of "politicisation", Mr Ahern said the Government was trying to implement the plan in a certain period of time.
"Moving over 10,000 jobs to 53 centres will not be easy, but there is no point in a government saying it will implement a plan if it then sits back and does nothing. For the period that any government is in office, it should be intent on doing what it says it will do and that is what this Government will do. That does not politicise the civil service in any way." Mr Ahern said that in some of the lower grades the take-up was four times what was needed, while in other grades there were difficulties.
"That also happened 10 years ago, but we cannot do much more than to say that it is entirely voluntary and no compunction or redundancy will be involved to ensure it is not politicised. We have already started the negotiating process." Mr Kenny said that this contradicted directly what the Minister for Finance had said when he stated "that he makes no secret that he set a December 2006 deadline because the next general election is due in 2007." That, he added, politicised the civil service, whether the Taoiseach liked it or not.
It was obvious, said Mr Kenny, that only 20 per cent of public servants had any confidence in the plan. In the Department of Enterprise and Employment, 69 out of 503 surveyed wanted to move to Carlow, where 250 were required, he added.
Only three out of the Department's 103 senior staff wanted to move. In the Department of the Environment, 35 out of 40 senior civil servants indicated that they did not wish to move to Wexford.
"This programme was criticised by the ESRI, the Royal Institute of Architects, the Royal Town Planning Institute and the Institute of Engineers among others." Mr Ahern said he did not believe that trying to implement the decentralisation plan, achieving balanced regional development and moving people out of greater Dublin, where the population now exceeded two million, politicised anything.
"If the Minister for Finance had taken a relaxed view and said that we might have the plan implemented by December 2010, at least four years after we leave office, Deputy Kenny would be the first to ask what kind of commitment we were displaying to decentralisation."
